A philosophical treatise on the hereditary peculiarities of the human race : with notes illustrative of the subject, particularly in gout, scrofula, and madness / by Joseph Adams.

  • Adams, Joseph, 1756-1818.
Date:
1815
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A philosophical treatise on the hereditary peculiarities of the human race : with notes illustrative of the subject, particularly in gout, scrofula, and madness / by Joseph Adams. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    81/168 (page 71)
    Note 12, Page 25.—“ Where the predisposition ex'uts^ it is of no consequence to the future progeny, whether the disease has been excited or not** If the reader is willing to admit so fair an infer- ence from facts which are daily passing before him, and from what I have stated relative to gout, he will see the impropriety of that passage in Fernelius, so often quoted by subsequent writers, “ Senes et vali- tudinarii imbecillesfdios vitiosa constitutione gignunt** What a gloomy prospect of life would such an opi- nion afford us ! what moral restraints would it not im- pose ! how much beyond what can be expected in the human constitution, and how unnecessary ! Because weak children are sometimes the offspring of aged parents, we are apt hastily to forget how often the same event occurs to parents in the vigour of life. The instances are innumerable, in which the younger branch of a family has revived its splendor, which had been decaying for a succession of ages. The late Mr. Pitt wa^ the youngest son, born when his illus- trious father was 51 years of acre. I think I have V <L? heard, that the great and venerable Pratt was the son of a much more aged parent. Note 1.0, Page 26.—“ Madness as well as gout, is never hereditary but in susceptibility; and those who have, paid the greatest attention to the subject, must ad- mit the two degrees of susceptibility.** Cases of very early insanity are recorded, but they appear to me, rather to come under the description of mental imbecility. This leads to one of the most dif- ficult questions in physics ; and the more so, as it is